Finishing Projects Fast
James R. Burns
Professor of Operations
Management and Information
Technology
Texas Tech University
1
Outline--Sources
Generalities
Goldratt concepts
Mascitelli concepts
McCONNELL concepts
Kerzner concepts
Maturity concepts
Other sources
Presentation by James R. Burns
2
Goal:
Make some suggestions as to how
projects can be completed fast and
frugally
Presentation by James R. Burns
3
Most firms
Recognize project management to be a core
competence today
Have established project management
centers of excellence for training and
development of project managers and project
management careers
Encourage their employees to propose
project initiatives with simple one-page
statements of work
Presentation by James R. Burns
5
Rationale for Reducing Project Duration
Time Is Money: Cost-Time Tradeoffs
Reducing the time of a critical activity usually
incurs additional direct costs.
Cost-time solutions focus on reducing (crashing)
activities on the critical path to shorten overall
duration of the project.
Reasons for imposed project duration dates:
Time-to-market pressures
Unforeseen delays
Incentive contracts (bonuses for early completion)
Imposed deadlines and contract commitments
Overhead and public goodwill costs
Pressure to move resources to other projects
9–6
Explanation of Project Costs
Project Indirect Costs
Costs that cannot be associated with any
particular work package or project
activity.
Supervision, administration, consultants, and
interest
Costs that vary (increase) with time.
Reducing project time directly reduces
indirect costs.
9–8
Explanation of Project Costs
Project Direct Costs
Normal costs that can be assigned directly to
a specific work package or project activity.
Labor, materials, equipment, and
subcontractors
Crashing activities increases direct costs.
Presentation by James R. Burns
9
Reducing Project Duration
to Reduce Project Cost
Identifying direct costs to reduce project time
Gather information about direct and indirect
costs of specific project durations.
Search critical activities for lowest direct-cost
activities to shorten project duration.
Compute total costs for specific durations and
compare to benefits of reducing project time.
9–10
Project Cost–Duration Graph
FIGURE 9.1
9–11
Constructing a Project Cost–
Duration Graph
Find total direct costs for
selected project durations.
Find total indirect costs for
selected project durations.
Sum direct and indirect costs
for these selected project
durations.
Compare additional cost
alternatives for benefits.
9–12
Constructing a Project Cost–
Duration Graph
Determining Activities to Shorten
Shorten the activities with the smallest increase in
cost per unit of time.
Assumptions:
The cost relationship is linear.
Normal time assumes low-cost, efficient
methods to complete the activity.
Crash time represents a limit—the greatest time
reduction possible under realistic conditions.
Slope represents a constant cost per unit of time.
9–13
All accelerations must occur within the normal
Activity Graph
FIGURE 9.2
9–14
Cost–Duration Trade-off Example
FIGURE 9.3
9–15
Cost–Duration Trade-off Example (cont’d)
FIGURE 9.3 (cont’d)
9–16
Cost–Duration Trade-off Example (cont’d)
FIGURE 9.4
9–17
Cost–Duration Trade-off Example (cont’d)
FIGURE 9.4 (cont’d)
9–18
Summary Costs by Duration
FIGURE 9.5
9–19
Project Cost–Duration Graph
FIGURE 9.6
9–20
Practical Considerations
Using the Project Cost–Duration Graph
Crash Times
Linearity Assumption
Choice of Activities to Crash Revisited
Time Reduction Decisions and Sensitivity
9–21
What if Cost, Not Time Is the
Issue?
Commonly Used Options for Cutting
Costs
Reduce project scope
Have owner take on more responsibility
Outsourcing project activities or even the
entire project
Brainstorming cost savings options
9–22
Project Priority Matrix: Whitbread Project
FIGURE 9.6
9–23
Things you can do when you
have unlimited resources
When cost is not a factor…..in the planning
phase preferably
Add resources
Recall the n(n-1)/2 rule for comm channels
Use Overtime
No additional comm overhead
Subcontract work out
Fast-tracking
Start tasks sooner
Crash
Recall Brook’s Law: adding manpower to a
Presentation
by James R. Burns
25
late project only
makes
it later
Strategies for shortening
projects when resources are
limited
Reduce scope
Scrub requirements—requires prioritization
Use critical chain concepts
You cannot start doing this in the middle of a
project—recall that there is significant training
involved
Compromise on quality—not good!!
Less requirements gathering and modeling, less
prototyping, less testing
Presentation by James R. Burns
26
Notes on shortening project
durations
(Most of this must be done in the Planning
phase)
Checking for parallelism opportunities
in the schedule
Pull as much work off of the critical path as you
can
Be aware of critical chain issues
Never let a programmer/developer
go ‘DARK’
Their work and progress should remain
visible at all times
Presentation by James R. Burns
27
More Tips on shortening
project durations
REUSE, REUSE, REUSE
Do it right the first time
Eliminate non-value-added work
activities
Make projects lean
Avoid changes to requirements
But what if the requirements are unstable??
Presentation by James R. Burns
28
Knowledge Reuse…
Requirements Reuse
Based on a Classification of projects
Mapped/Programmed Projects-Everything is driven by and proceeds
from the requirements
Project Plan
Functional Specification
Design Document
Code
Tests and Test Documentation
ALL OF WHICH CAN BE REUSED
Presentation by James R. Burns
29
The Quality View on FAST
projects:
The further down the lifecycle the
defects are found, the more expensive
and time consuming they are to fix.
Presentation by James R. Burns
30
The problem of Complexity
In the early days of simpler code, it
used to take a day or less to fix a bug
Now, with greatly increased code
complexity, it takes weeks sometimes.
Presentation by James R. Burns
31
Avoid changes to
requirements
If possible, freeze requirements during
the executing phase
Presentation by James R. Burns
32
Lean Project Management
Customer-perceived value should drive
everything
What is the value proposition??
If we were to advertise in the WSJ that we
have twice as many walkthroughs as our
closest competition, would that garner any
additional customers for us?
Remove what does not add value
Presentation by James R. Burns
33
Principles of Lean Concepts
Applied to Projects
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Precisely specify the value of the project
Identify the value stream for each project
Allow value to flow without interruptions
Let the customer pull value from the
project team
Continuously pursue perfection
Presentation by James R. Burns
34
Which of the following adds
value?
Conducting a weekly team coordination
Hunting for needed information
Presenting Project status to upper
management
Creating formal project documents
Gaining multiple approvals for a project
document
Waiting in queues for available resources
Presentation by James R. Burns
35
Time Batching--Another Time
Waster
Analysis paralysis
Approval cycles
Formal document release
Regularly scheduled meetings
Planning cycles
Work queues
Presentation by James R. Burns
36
More techniques for
shortening projects
Scrub the requirements during or prior to the
planning phase
Remove from the requirements those items that add
little or no value
Remember the Pareto principle—80% of the value
comes from 20% of the functionality
REMOVE SAFETY—GOLDRATT
Resist multitasking and student
syndrome
Presentation by James R. Burns
37
Safety
Extra time placed in an estimated task time
Remove safety and put it in a time buffer at
the end of the project
Safety, when its buried in the tasks of the
project, is a bad thing because of….
Multitasking, also a bad thing
Student syndrome
Task dependencies
Can’t be passed along or accumulated
Presentation by James R. Burns
38
Everybody overestimates the
time required to do their task
According to Goldratt
(This is called SAFETY, as we said)
Does anybody want to talk about how
much safety they put into their
estimates?
Is this true in software development?
It is if you have an expert doing the
estimating, who really knows how long
it will take him
Presentation by James R. Burns
39
What happens after that--a
possible scenario
The team leader adds safety time to the
task to cover his responsibilities
The project leader adds more safety
time
The project manager may add still more
safety time
Presentation by James R. Burns
40
Implication>>>
Most of the time we have built into our
projects is …..
Presentation by James R. Burns
41
The project manager must stay
focused
Or the project will not be finished on time,
within budget
This means applying the Pareto principle
80% of the benefit comes from 20% of the activities
By the time progress reports indicate
something is wrong, its usually too late
Progress reports tell you that 90% of the
project is finished in 90% of the required
time.
However, another equal period of time is
required to complete the remaining “10%,” in
many cases
Presentation by James R. Burns
42
It is hard to stay focused
when:
There are too many project paths ongoing, in parallel
There are many critical or near critical
paths
There are many projects being
managed concurrently
Presentation by James R. Burns
43
Measurements are a major
problem with projects
Measurements should induce the parts to do
what is good for the system as a whole
Measurements should direct managers to the
point that needs their attention
So often it occurs that we measure the wrong
thing.
The wrong measure leads to the wrong behavior
Tell me how you measure me and I will show you
how I behave
Presentation by James R. Burns
44
More Measurements -- EVA
Presentation by James R. Burns
45
Projects are like chains
Each task in sequence is a link in a
chain
Each link has two things
weight, to which cost is analogous
strength, to which throughput (time) is
analogous
Presentation by James R. Burns
46
Cost vs Throughput
Goldratt maintains that management in
the cost world is a mirage
efficiency becomes paramount
local improvements are necessary to get global
ones
Goldratt suggests the managers should
manage in the throughput world, a
totally different paradigm
must find the constraint--the weakest link
concentrate on that
By the way, what is the ultimate constraint???
Presentation by James R. Burns
47
Remember the five steps of
TOC
IDENTIFY the project constraint--the
critical path
Decide how to EXPLOIT that constraint
SUBORDINATE everything to that
decision
ELEVATE the systems’ constraint
Go back to step 1, and find another
constraint
Presentation by James R. Burns
48
Probabilistic task durations
Late finishes tend to accumulate and
may increase the length of the project
Early finishes do not show up
This explains why safety disappears
Presentation by James R. Burns
49
Other problems with safety
Is wasted by the “student syndrome”
Basically, this is procrastination
Is wasted by multitasking (a person who
works on several tasks at the same time)
With each change of task, a set up is required
Is wasted by dependencies between steps
These dependencies cause delays to accumulate,
but advances are wasted
Delays get passed on; advances
don’t
Presentation by James R. Burns
50
Problems other than safety
Early start vs. late start
Existing measurements are worthless because
they are based on a cost world mentality,
according to Goldratt
Existing measurements (Earned Value
Analysis) do not take into consideration the
critical path
We’re talking about BCWP, BCWS, ACWP, CV,
SV, CPI, SPI, BAC, EAC, etc.
Presentation by James R. Burns
51
Early Start vs. Late Start
Presentation by James R. Burns
52
How much Safety is there
likely to be?
Will project professionals admit how much
safety they are putting into their estimates?
What happens when these professionals are
asked to cut their durations by 50%, next
time?
These professionals want to be 100% sure of
getting finished on time
Therefore, the durations are likely to be twice
as long as they should be
So CUT THEM IN HALF
Presentation by James R. Burns
53
Solutions
Take the safety out of the individual
tasks and put it at the end of the critical
path in the time buffer, called a
project buffer
This means making the tasks roughly
50-60% as long as they would
otherwise be.
Presentation by James R. Burns
54
More solutions
At the point where each feeding path intersects
with the critical path, place another time buffer,
called a feeding buffer. The feeding buffer protects
the critical path from delays occurring in the
corresponding non-critical paths.
When resources are needed on the critical path,
these resources are advised ahead of time exactly
when they must make themselves available. When
that time comes, they must drop everything else
and do the required critical tasks.
Presentation by James R. Burns
55
Measurement solutions
Measure progress only on the critical
path; what percent of the critical path
we have already completed. This is all
we care about!!
Have a project leader measure progress
on a non critical path in terms of
unused buffer days
Presentation by James R. Burns
56
Shrinking the task time:
Effects
There is less procrastination
There is much more focus
There is less multitasking
Presentation by James R. Burns
57
More Suggestions
Put your “BEST” people on the critical
path
Watch out for critical chains
Presentation by James R. Burns
58
What are the ramifications of
a delayed software product,
intended for commercial sale?
Less market share
Less profit; maybe no profit
Lower analyst profit expectations
Declining share price
Out of business?
How many firms has Microsoft driven out of
business?
Ask Philippe Khan (founder of Borland) what the
implications of getting a product late to the
marketplace are
Presentation by James R. Burns
59
What about Procurement
Most firms enter into LOSE/LOSE Strategies
A fixed-price lowest bidder contract is LOSE/LOSE
Strategy
This forces Contractors to under bid their
costs, hoping to make it back on the changes
to the requirements that the customer will
have to pay for
Instead, Contractors should be induced to
deliver product on time, with as much
functionality as possible
How would you do this?
Presentation by James R. Burns
60